


A Minimum of Burnt Dinners and Bad Decisions

by friendlyneighborhoodsecretary



Series: I'm Never Prompt with Prompts [12]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, Grandma May Parker, Grandpa Tony Stark, Just a Couple Friends Enjoying Their Found Family Grandchild, Peter Parker's Kid, Post-Endgame, all fluff no plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:15:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22458589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlyneighborhoodsecretary/pseuds/friendlyneighborhoodsecretary
Summary: Evidently, juggling all the old house husband/stay-at-home-dad things Tony kept up with when Morgan was small isn't quite as much like riding a bike as he had hoped. Retirement has a way of leaving you rusty, regardless of how many universes you've saved. Fortunately, Tony's not alone.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark
Series: I'm Never Prompt with Prompts [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558726
Comments: 11
Kudos: 70





	A Minimum of Burnt Dinners and Bad Decisions

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt: "Are you help? Please tell me you're help!"

“Are you help? Please tell me you’re help,” Tony all but whines over the rolling boil of the soup pot on the stove, the insistent ding of the oven timer that’s screeching about the garlic bread, the snores of the baby dozing in the crook of his arm, and FRIDAY’s increasingly sardonic reminders about the also increasing number of check-in text messages from Peter that he has yet to answer. Sure, he’s a fully capable adult, an engineer whose life’s work has hinged on successful multitasking, and a certified genius, if anyone cares to check. And sure, he’s the one who shooed Peter and MJ out the door for a relaxing day away from the baby. The one who encouraged Pepper and Morgan to take that mother-daughter bonding day while they had the chance (winter break doesn’t last forever after all, and neither does the family’s holiday retreat to the lakehouse). The one who brushed off Happy and May’s offers of putting aside their own day’s relaxation to help out.

The one who volunteered himself to handle both babysitting _and_ dinner duty on the same damn day.

 _It’ll be fine_ , he’d assured them. _I’ve juggled a lot more than babies and meal planning._ And while that was true…it had been a very long time since he had had to.

Evidently, it was not as much like riding a bike as he’d envisioned. The soup had gone well up until he’d found that they were out of half the spices he needed, he’d had to try slicing the bread one-handed because the baby burst into tears when he sat her down (though he suspected that that had more to do with how interested she was in teething on his metal arm than in any sentimental feelings for Grandpa), and when the little one had finally fallen into a tenuous sleep, there was no putting her down without the risk of waking her. All in all, nothing had gone to plan.

“I definitely _can_ be help.” May’s eyes go a bit wide at the chaos as she closes the lakehouse’s door behind her, cheeks still pink and hair still windblown from the walk she and Happy had taken around the lakeshore. Still, she takes it all in stride—as she always does—and promptly crosses the kitchen to scoop her grandbaby gently out of Tony’s grip.

Tony sputters as May waltzes a few steps off, murmuring soft nonsense to her tiny namesake as the newly-woken—because of _course_ she can sleep through multiple alarms, but not a little shifting—May Michelle Parker scrubs chubby hands over drowsy eyes and grumbles as much as her limited nine-month-old vocabulary allows. It’s more adorable than any unexpected wake-up has a right to be, and Tony finds himself melting even in the face of his righteous outrage at the grandbaby-theft. “That—that is not the help I wanted, Parker. C’mon, now, there’s soup to tend and bread to get, but you just _had_ to take the baby—”

“Beggars can’t be choosers, Tony. You can’t win ‘em all.” May shrugs, nuzzling the baby’s curls with a certain measure of smug satisfaction that Tony really can’t blame her for. It’s an old joke, born during the terrifying few months when none of them were sure how Peter’s altered DNA would affect a pregnancy. They swapped boasts about who the favorite grandparent would be with a sort of veiled desperation—an unspoken mutual reassurance that there would actually _be_ a grandkid to fight over, all doubts and fears be damned because May Parker and Tony Stark had spoken and the universe had better fall in line—that didn’t entirely fade until the bright morning Little Miss Sunshine arrived. Now, it was just habit, a collection of old lines trotted out and bickered over on a regular basis over coffee or across the dinner table. Old lines familiar enough for Tony to roll his eyes at rather fondly as he dives to rescue the bread from the broiler and gives the soup a few hasty stirs. Neither of them actually care who gets more snuggle time or who chalks up more sweet baby giggles—if they did, May would be winning since she has the breathtakingly unfair advantage of living in the city while Tony only gets the opportunity to make up lost ground during visits like this—but, by this point in their lives, snark counts as a fondness all its own. They’ve been fondly sniping at one another for far too long for any of it to matter now.

“Can’t win any of them today,” Tony mutters as he slides a pan of badly singed garlic bread out of the oven and sets it aside to cool. May snorts, drawing an answering giggle from May the Second. Tony pauses in scooting the soup pot off its burner to make a face at her over his shoulder and gets another delighted giggle in return. Her genetics are one hundred percent Parker when it comes to that laugh. Both that and the smile that goes with it are distilled sunshine. That, if nothing else, makes it easier for Tony to ignore the shambles of the planned dinner crumbling around him.

“After all these years, my culinary skills have finally rubbed off on you.”

“Yes. Absolutely. All your fault. You’re now guilty of this—” He waves a hand at the smoldering ash in Pepper’s favorite baking sheet (he’ll pay for that later in some less-than-subtle ways, he’s sure of that). “—atrocity by association. Suggestions?”

“Takeout,” May says, her voice decisive, but thoroughly muffled by the way she’s craning her head back to dodge the grabby little hands reaching for her glasses. “And prompt disposal of the evidence. It’s really the only way to go for kitchen disasters.”

“You would know…”

“As if you _don’t_ , Mr. Three-Hour-Omelette.” May grins at the look she gets and nearly loses her glasses to the quick little fingers that pat at her face as a result. “Don’t think Pepper hasn’t told me about that.”

“Did she also tell you that there’s exactly one takeout place within a twenty-mile radius of here? Hate to break it to you, but counting the drive, the food prep time, etc., we won’t eat ‘til midnight if we take the Parker route. And by my count, we’ve got half a dozen hungry people showing back up here within the next half hour, so—”

“—so it should work out just about right since I put in the catering order _much_ earlier this afternoon and sent Happy off to pick it up before I came inside,” May cuts him off not unkindly, but efficiently, and with a faint smirk. She bounces the baby on her hip as her voice drifts into the goofy sing-song nearly all of them are guilty of these days. “We’ve got it alllll covered, don’t we? Don’t we? Yes, we do!”

Tony blinks before a bubble of laughter rolls out of him. He may have let himself get rusty since retirement, but he has the feeling that May Parker is never going to slow down. That’s fortunate since the family just keeps right on growing and aging and getting more complicated (and extended, if the addition of May Michelle is any example) by the year. Between her and Pepper, the rest of them just might have a shot at getting by with a minimum of dumb decisions and burnt dinners. Tony can’t be anything but grateful for that.

“Ms. Parker, you’re a lifesaver.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, lovelies! <3
> 
> *For the curious, May Michelle Parker refers to a Spideychelle kid I've used in several other fics.


End file.
